Why do the Soviet Tu-144 and the French "Concorde" nose down and up

  • Jul 16, 2022
Why do the Soviet Tu-144 and the French " Concorde" nose down and up

The Cold War is an entire era in human history. The fierce confrontation between the socialist and capitalist world has repeatedly put the world on the threshold of a total nuclear holocaust. At least twice in history, the fingers of our and overseas military have already been placed above the red buttons. However, it cannot be denied that in the fierce economic, political, ideological, cultural and scientific confrontation between really beautiful things often appeared in “red” and “blue”, for example, the British-French Concorde aircraft and its Soviet brother Tu-144.

Tu-144 with a movable nose. |Photo: m.fishki.net.
Tu-144 with a movable nose. |Photo: m.fishki.net.
Tu-144 with a movable nose. |Photo: m.fishki.net.

Let both the Concorde and the Tu-144 never find commercial use, but the whole history of creation supersonic civil aviation is more tragic than romantic, today humanity even does not strive. Without a clash of ideologies and the need to constantly demonstrate superiority on all fronts at once, the world has finally slipped into shameless money-making on all fronts. You can’t even hope for the old Elon Musk: the hype has passed, they didn’t fly to Mars.

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It's all about the chassis. |Photo: yaplakal.com.
It's all about the chassis. |Photo: yaplakal.com.

But all this is poetry. We are interested in the answer to a specific question: why could the nose of both mentioned supersonic aircraft move, changing its position? Actually the reason is in the chassis. The fact is that both the Tu-144 and the Concorde, for technical reasons, had to be put on a long landing gear, because of which the front of the aircraft was raised up. With this design solution, the nose began to close the normal view of the pilots in the cockpit during takeoff and landing, making it difficult for the pilots and reducing the safety of the machine. Therefore, both French and Soviet engineers found an elegant solution to the problem.

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A movable nose is needed to improve the view. |Photo: rostec.ru.
A movable nose is needed to improve the view. |Photo: rostec.ru.

The nose of the aircraft was made movable and planted on a dual electric drive, which allowed it to deviate by 11 and 17 degrees during takeoff and landing, respectively. Thus, due to the mobility of the bow, the pilots during takeoff and landing of the liner could have a normal view from the cockpit. Why couldn't the nose of the fuselage just be curved and save on drives? It is still simple here: such a solution would lead to a violation of the aerodynamic qualities of the aircraft. The crooked nose of both the Tu-144 and the Concorde was needed only on the ground. Amid the clouds, the fuselage had to be "straight" and as streamlined as possible.

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The cabin is straight in the sky. ¦Photo: Twitter.
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In continuation of the topic, read about IL-112: a plane that shouldn't have taken off.
Source:
https://novate.ru/blogs/200422/62767/